Tag: Party

For this special holiday edition of “Left, Right & Center,” the show’s regulars—Robert Scheer, Matt Miller, Arianna Huffington and Tony Blankley—take their talk to the meta level to discuss what it means to own their respective political labels at this particular moment.

This is good news for the tiara-wearing teen set, perhaps bad news for humanity in general: According to the Los Angeles Times, business is brisk for that sparkly and slightly grotesque niche of the special-events industry that targets ... (continued)

The Movimento Sociale-Fiamma Tricolore party in Italy has offered to pay $1,940 to parents who name their children after Benito Mussolini or his wife Rachele. The “purely casual” name game is meant to address low birthrates and not fascist nostalgia, according to the far-right party. Sure.

When his term as chairman of the Democratic National Committee is up, Howard Dean will step aside to make room for a guy or gal of President-elect Barack Obama’s choosing. Dean has received both praise and scorn for his performance as chairman.

You may have knocked on doors for Barack Obama, but it’s possible you gave money to John McCain. GoodGuide has a tool that sorts donations by party, logo and industry. Tech companies seem to prefer Democrats while food companies love Republicans. The banks, of course, throw money at everybody.

All right, so we’re being a bit facetious with the headline here, but seriously, Sen. Joe Lieberman’s future vis-à-vis his former base at the Democratic Party is a tad uncertain at this time, to say the least.

Former Roman Catholic Bishop Fernando Lugo’s campaign against poverty has won him the presidency of Paraguay, a country that has been ruled by the same conservative party for 61 years—arguably longer than the run of any party in any other country.

Nancy Pelosi, who is not only one of the highest-ranking members of the Democratic Party but the chair of its approaching national convention, has weighed in on two of the most controversial issues looming over the presidential nomination. Superdelegates, Pelosi said, should not overrule the will of the voters, and the disputed delegations from Michigan and Florida “can’t make the difference because then we would have no rules.”

Benazir Bhutto’s teenage son has been named the chairman of her Pakistan People’s Party, although her husband will run the PPP until Bilawal finishes college. Asif Ali Zardari refused to allow his wife to be autopsied but has asked the U.N. and Britain to investigate her assassination.

It’s almost primary time, voters of America, so get ready for more electoral shenanigans! The venerable southern state of Virginia is fast out of the gates this election season, thanks to the local Republican Party, which came up with the ingenious idea of requiring voters who want to take part in February’s primary to pledge that they’ll also cast their vote for the Republican presidential nominee next Nov. 4.

China plans to stick with the economic and political reforms that have brought prestige, wealth and environmental catastrophe to the country, but don’t expect Beijing to turn its back on the Communist Party completely. As the official spokesman of the 17th party congress put it: “We will never copy the Western model of political system.”

The number of independent voters has grown steadily in recent years, particularly in the Southwest. Politicians have had a difficult time appealing to the less predictable group, which includes everyone from ex-libertarians to young people who think of political parties as irrelevant. Update: A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows independents favor Democrats by 2 to 1.

Well, we knew this was coming, but now it’s official: Sen. Joe Lieberman has created a new political party that he will use to appear on the November ballot if he loses the Democratic primary in August.

As such a move would amount to sticking his thumb in the eye of Conn. voters, the name of his new political party is deliciously ironic: Connecticut for Lieberman.

Maybe he should have picked something more representative of his backing: Lieberman for Lieberman.

That’s the call from Michael Tomasky in a cover story for the American Prospect. He means republicans with a small ‘r’—defenders of the idea of a republic that serves the common good. Tomasky writes: “What the Democrats still don?t have is a philosophy, a big idea that unites their proposals and converts them from a hodgepodge of narrow and specific fixes into a vision for society.”